MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — In the end, maybe West Virginia just wasn’t destined to travel to Waco, Texas, this season.
The Big 12 announced Tuesday the Mountaineers’ game at Baylor scheduled for Thursday has been canceled.
The reason?
“To avoid scheduling a team to play three games in successive weeks, the West Virginia at Baylor game scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 25, has been canceled,” the Big 12 said in the announcement.
With the change, WVU’s seven-day road trip in the state of Texas was reduced to five days. The Mountaineers returned home following its 74-66 victory against TCU on Tuesday at the Schollmaier Arena.
“I think we’re all happy to go home,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “We only played two games, but it seemed like a lot more, with practices in between. It’s just good to be able to go home and sleep in your own bed.”
WVU will instead play two games this week — the Mountaineers also host Kansas State on Saturday — and will end the regular season next week with three home games.
Those games: vs. Baylor (March 2, 5 p.m.), vs. TCU (March 4, TBA) and vs. Oklahoma State (March 6, TBA).
“Finishing at home will be a blessing in disguise for us,” WVU guard Taz Sherman said. “Of course, we wanted to play out here (against Baylor), because we would have had something to gain, but going home and playing four straight games is definitely a win for us.”
With the revised schedule, Baylor ends up as the only Big 12 school WVU will not play twice and the Bears, who have missed the last two weeks due to COVID-19 protocols, are scheduled to play a total of 14 conference games rather than the normal 18.
As far as WVU’s trip to Waco, the meeting was rescheduled two other times.
It was originally down for Jan. 12, but had to be postponed after WVU could not meet Big 12 roster requirements due to COVID-19 issues.
It was rescheduled for Feb. 18, but was postponed again after Baylor couldn’t play and now Thursday’s game was officially canceled.
Taz vs. the state of Texas
Tuesday’s game was the sixth time this season the Mountaineers have played against an opponent from the state of Texas.
Sherman, who grew up just outside of Houston, has played in five of those games — he missed one game against Texas Tech with a sore groin — and he scored in double figures all five times.
“I think it’s just one of those things that’s a coincidence,” said Sherman, who finished with 23 points against the Horned Frogs. “It’s always good to come home and play in my home state. It’s good to have friends and family come out. This game was the first game my mom and little brother have been to this year. It’s going to be great to see them, so I had to put on a show.”
Road wins continue
Maybe coming back home isn’t the best thing for the Mountaineers.
With the TCU win, West Virginia recorded it’s sixth consecutive road win in Big 12 play, the longest streak since joining the conference in 2012.
“This is something we’ve stayed conscious of,” WVU forward Derek Culver said. “We really want to close out games, because we haven’t always been a second-half team. We’re starting to get out of that stage of playing down to our competition and sticking to our game plan.”
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